


Turnabout

by Roseus



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: BAMF Q (James Bond), Bipolar Disorder, Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M, No Time To Die Fix-It, Post-SPECTRE, SPECTRE Fix-It, because we deal by projecting in this house, before it even fucking comes out because yeah, i don't know what happens in nttd but for a few more months neither do you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:54:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24292426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roseus/pseuds/Roseus
Summary: Bond is back in all his glory. Unfortunately for him, Q has some self respect.
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Comments: 17
Kudos: 221





	Turnabout

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely inspired by that edit of q's scene from the trailer set to Boyfriend's Back by Kat Graham because it punted me into outer space. I don't know how to write uk english, I watched skyfall and spectre literally this week, my only excuse is that quarantine makes us do some wild shit. I just think Q deserves to be sexy and angry!!

Q is not an amateur. Bond had learned first-hand in the first days of their acquaintance that the man is skilled beyond his years. One doesn’t forget the omniscience, the stream of left-right-duck-now that are always there to deliver him from danger, should he choose to heed them. But having Q in his ear for the first time in an age, he’s still pleasantly shocked at his competence, which is something different from skill altogether. Q’s words are cool and commanding under fire, and Bond can see him in his mind’s eye, lording over the room with iron composure. Bit sexy really.

_“007, I do hope you are planning something of use to me.”_

“Could do,” Bond purrs.

The reflex rises on its own; amusing really, something sliding back into place that he hadn’t remembered to forget. Of course he flirts with Q, as simply as breathing or blinking. Depending on the day his Quartermaster may continue the volley and imply some truly nasty things with his tone that would never read from the transcript alone, or simply treat Bond to some of the most acerbic barbs he’ll hear all week. Either way pleases him just fine. They never got around to screwing, but the same could be said about Bond and a number of people at MI6 when he had left. He waits to see which way Q’s temper leans today.

Q exhales shortly and says nothing.

Bond taps his comm to see if it has spontaneously died, but it chirps agreeably in his ear. Before he has any time to meditate on it, three large men with large guns are barrelling towards him and he finds himself rather distracted. The first gets far to close into range for comfort, and Bond ends up cutting out the middle man and rushing him, forcing down the muzzle of his gun as he pistol whips the man across the head. He goes down easily, but his accompaniment manages to disarm Bond in the confusion, if horrifically inelegantly.

_“Fire extinguisher, ten meters, left wall.”_

He surges past the attackers, gaining a bullet graze for his trouble that medical is going to try and make a whole ordeal out of. The fire extinguisher is just where Q says it will be, and he swings it over his shoulder as he ducks into a doorway, bullets chipping off the brick walls. Then no sound but the cautious scrape of approaching footsteps.

_“Just a second--_ ” an alarm blares, and Bond’s grin reveals his eyeteeth. One pair of footsteps splits off. He spies a security camera across the hall and winks, thinking Q will needle him for it.

_“Hold. Hold. Now!”_

Bond steps out and swings the tank like it’s a baseball bat, connecting resoundingly against the assailant’s skull. It’s almost alarming how perfectly timed it is. Like Q is the one guiding his limbs, personally. For a second he imagines his Quartermaster’s phantom touch, fingers spread over his forearm to guide the shot, and shivers.

“East staircase will be clear if you move, now,” Q says, command and urgency pressing luxuriously to the forefront of his voice. Bond breaks for it, grabbing a gun off the body. Maybe it says something about him that blind trust is better than freefall, though he would never say something like that aloud. Maybe it says something that he’s glad they’re letting the dog run, even though this is hour seventy-two of this operation and he’s already had three close scrapes with death and he’s only here because all his grand delusions of happily ever after went up in smoke. The metal weight in his hand is not his Walther but it’s cold and smooth and for this moment he can’t deny that it’s good to be back.

Back at his hotel, he revels in how everything fits just the way it should. The seat at the bar is waiting for him. Fine cotton slides against fresh gauze and it feels like being in the money. He shouldn’t be this plussed over returning to the field but even though Q branch is always listening they can’t hear inside his head, so he allows himself to indulge the headrush just a bit. Halfway into his first martini his mark turns up all on his own, and he thinks the gods of fortune have cut him a very fine cloth. The ID card they’re in need of is even hanging off his beltloop on a lanyard, like a carnival prize.

The man is slim and dark haired, and the vodka sits burning on Bond’s tongue as he comes to have something of a whim, or a premonition. He turns just so in his seat, posture open as he looks off his shoulder. Making fleeting eye contact is easy. After a moment the man crosses to sit beside him, easy as that.

“Bond. James Bond.” It rolls off his tongue easily and the man, Adrian, grins slyly at him. They talk about cars with very thinly veiled innuendo about how much horsepower a driver could handle. Adrian laughs and puts his hand on Bond’s forearm. In the lull of breath after laughter and before speech, Bond raises his eyebrow just so and they both lean in for the kind of kiss strangers share. And really, Bond could have nicked the card then. He doesn’t have to sleep with him.

But he certainly does.

Bond strolls into MI6 with only mild blood loss and at least some of the tech he left with, quite satisfied that he’s not all that rusty after all. After the obligatory debrief wherein M watches him like a bird that’s flown in from the window, he drops by Q branch to subtly taunt Q with what he has and hasn’t managed to retain. Only Q isn’t there. R smiles and takes his toys away in a plastic bin to be wiped down for lead.

Bond is seized by the memory of his earlier exchange with Q.

_“Not dead then?”_

_“Hello Q, I’ve missed you.”_

Q had had his arms crossed, chin tilted defiantly. He had glared, but he was like that sometimes. However, now the same Q hadn’t responded to his flirting, positive or negative. Bond wouldn’t have even noticed he was flirting if Q hadn’t frozen him out so obviously. _Not dead then_ , like he actually minded that Bond was gone. But he had been perfectly cooperative until the end of this mission.

Ah. The mark.

It was all falling into place. Well. He really was a right bastard, wasn’t he. Everyone knew it. He was by no means above leading on his Quartermaster and crushing his heart, all without even noticing. It was par the course for the kind of human shaped monster he was. Bond was built for destruction, and had failed to make room for anything else.

Q was a good bloke who had no business getting wound up in something like him to begin with. Soon enough Bond would become a memory of an old hurt, the only way he knows how to exist anymore. It’s in his nature.

Still. He’s kind enough to check on him. Even though it’s probably salt in an open wound.

He steps into the stairwell and reaches for his phone. Q picks up on the last possible ring. “He-llo,” he annunciates.

“Hello.”

“007?” Q’s voice lilts up precariously. “Oh, I’m not supposed to talk to you.”

Bond blinks. “What?”

Q giggles, more air than sound. “I’m too excited.”

“Now that I’d like to see,” Bond responds liquidly, because it’s conditioned reflex and he’s horrible. Q just laughs again. Bond doesn’t know if he’s ever heard Q laugh this much.

“Nice try. I’m not allowed to have sex either.”

Bond stops in the middle of the staircase. “… _What?_ ”

“Argh, this is cheating. Goodnight.”

Bond touches his fingers to his forehead, and turns around. Surely someone in Q branch can be pressured into handing over his address.

Unlike the phone, Q answers the door near immediately. He’s in pyjamas, blue plaid sweats and a washed out grey shirt. Bond is getting used to being looked at like unexpected wildlife. Then, inexplicably, Q breaks into a grin, and Bond is thrown off his balance again. He had expected heartbroken, wilted Q, not this.

“oh-seven!” Q moves aside to let him through, and Bond passes the threshold without really thinking. His Quartermaster always knew how to play on his instincts.

“Are you alright?” Bond asks. Q laughs that breathy giggle he had heard over the phone, one hand messing his hair. He looks bright in every sense of the word.

“This is actually very funny. I’m fine, yeah, just that last seventy-two hour stint really sent me over.” Q is speaking quickly. It occurs to Bond that he might be high. “No one keeps me up like you do. I was right out of form for an all-nighter, thought I could white knuckle it but afterwards I couldn’t sleep and here I am, manic as Monday.”

Bond doesn’t even go for the low hanging fruit that is ‘no one keeps me up like you’. His cheek twitches. “Manic.”

Q shrugs fluidly and flops down onto a serviceable grey couch. “Future me is going to be quite ticked off about this. It’s a bad idea to tell trained assassins when you’re most vulnerable, but yeah, I’m bipolar. But I assure you I only fuck men,” he adds with a cheeky smile. Bond trips over the perfectly flat floor.

Q has perched himself on a nest of fleece blankets which are shoved to the ends of the couch. There are several mugs on his coffee table of various beverages. At least one is hot milk. His laptop is open to an extremely elaborate spreadsheet that Bond cannot make heads or tails of despite blatantly reading it over his shoulder, beside a catalogue for electronic parts which is marked over in multiple colours. As he’s observing this an enormous maine-coon steps on his black leather shoes.

“And you’re not allowed to talk to me while you’re manic,” Bond prompts.

“No impulse control. Might say something idiotic like ‘you’re an arrogant twit with the emotional range of a broom’ etcetera. It’s like drunk texting, you have to know you’re not going to do it when you start out.”

“And no sex.”

“Sex is dangerous! You of all people should know. I’ve had enough friends who accidently acquired sexual trauma because of choices they thought they could make, I’m not risking it when I know my reasoning is impaired. Lord, you’re probably one of them. Sorry, no impulse control means no brain to mouth filter.” Bond compartmentalizes that handy statement in record time. “But I have a system.”

Bond raises an eyebrow.

“Listen, I’ve been managing this for two decades, I’ve got a handle on it,” Q says, perfectly happy to carry the conversation. It’s like his voice is dancing in the air. “And no slick comments on my age. I have spreadsheets for god’s sake.”

That he does. Bond leans in curiously and Q is happy to explain, totally open an unguarded in a way that completely disarms him. It’s a very thorough system. At a baseline level if Q shows any symptoms of an oncoming manic episode, he doesn’t go to work, where judgement errors could cost lives. From there he gauges just how manic he is by window shopping for tech and tallying the hypothetical damages, done with a paper catalogue so he doesn’t actually buy anything absurd. If he’s very up, everything will seem like a great idea and he’ll black out the entire thing.

This, tempered by a certain amount of qualitative judgement (sometimes manic means angry or anxious, and then shopping is somewhat useless) gets fed into the spreadsheet, which determines what else Q is banned from doing at a given time. He gets the simplified version. Level one means no online shopping or extracurricular hacking. Level two means no conversation with anyone risky (“That’s you” “Got that bit actually”), and no casual sex. Level three was no internet whatsoever and no nonessential spending. Q hates level three.

“It’s not that I’d do anything really concerning, I just don’t like to embarrass myself. Christ, I’m going to be in a snit over this when I come down.” He laughs like they’re in on a joke, just the two of them, and Bond has no idea what to do with this warm, bubbly Q. Now that he knows not to be alarmed, it’s dangerously close to charming to see the ever-guarded Q so unwound. Q scoops another cat, a sleek black shorthair, into his arms and kisses it between the ears.

“And what about when you’re down?” Bond finds himself inquiring. Perhaps it’s invasive, but he wants to be. He wants to push further into Q’s interior life.

“Well, I’m plenty good at working when I’m depressed. Had that mastered by age twelve.” Again, things Bond compartmentalizes: that he understands perfectly. “Mostly I just take care of myself. I see a therapist, I eat and sleep regularly, I don’t run myself into the ground. You should try it.”

Bond is a bit put out that he was ever sorry for him, and searches for a change of subject. He spots a bike lock on the coat rack. “You bike?” Q nods and fortuitously chooses that moment to bend over to set down the cat. Bond shamelessly watches the shift of his arse in the sweats, catching the way the cuff of one leg rides up to reveal a well-toned slice of calf. He must have very nice legs. “It shows.”

Apparently Q didn’t miss him that much, because he socks him with a throw pillow.

Q, who is apparently not in love with him, turns up on Monday looking a little ragged but on the whole fine. His hair is combed neat to balance the bags under his eyes, and it hadn’t ever crossed his mind until this moment but James actually minds that he changed it. Objectively it looks better than the untamed mop he came to this organization with, but it irks him to see Q so polished. James would prefer to mess him up.

He finds himself imagining it while he’s in the gym, trying to make up for muscle mass lost to another impermanent retirement. He zones out on the treadmill and pictures closing his fingers around black hair, and sleekly muscled thighs. He imagines it like he thought before that it would inevitably happen, Q’s spine arched before him and a flush visible over his shoulders, rushed in the best way. It must be great for his cardio readout.

Serendipity is with him again because just then Q walks in to hand deliver specs for his latest modifications to the Walther. In the moment where they both have a hand on the manila folder Q’s eyes flick across his body, lingering on his still heaving chest. Bond thinks, maybe now. Maybe all those things they never got around to should happen now. It’s easy to make eye contact, to open his body language and lean in almost imperceptibly.

Q looks at him. He releases the folder and walks away. Bond is struck by the feeling that things have not stayed the same. It kills the last of the bravado of his return, forcing him to acknowledge that for all the showmanship he’s hiding behind convenient masks: the lover, the executioner, the devil. Q leaves him behind without a backwards word and James remembers he’s only pretending he doesn’t have stake in this. It’s easier than remembering that he’s lonely.

Some things never change. For instance, the Russian mob in Berlin is apparently committed to the same tactics they were using a century ago, James notes idly as they break his fingers with a tire iron. He grits his teeth against a scream and marvels at how fast this one went tits up. It’s Wednesday. They arrived in Germany on Monday.

It was supposed to be a low profile, low risk mission, because isn’t it always. Smash and grab, data retrieval off a single personal laptop in the possession of a wealthy ringleader by the name of Vasyli. To locate the computer, he had been given his standard equipment, license to improvise, and Q. They breeze in to a classically luxurious hotel on Monday evening and James splits off immediately to case the neighbourhood—really a glorified evening stroll. All it does is confirm what Q branch had reported from satellite photograph, but it’s nice to stretch his legs.

He returns hours later under the cover of night, one tracker lighter and with new bruises hiding under his shirt. Trouble always finds a way. He knocks lightly on Q’s door to report in, and Q sedately calls him in. James opens the door and blinks.

Q is seated at a dark wood writing desk with an arm thrown over the back of his chair, looking over his shoulder at him. He has evidently retired for the night, because he’s switched his cosy daywear for a wine coloured silk robe that hangs loose over his shoulders, showing the line of his neck and the first ridges of his spine. James could name the individual vertebrae, and he thinks of something he was told once in Kyoto, about the nape being the centre of sex appeal. Q gazes coolly at him over unfamiliar glasses. Far from his usual blocky techie ones, they’re a more fashionable thin gold frame. His jaw is shadowed from a long day without a shave. One elegant hand is still poised over a keyboard. In short, he looks pretty. It’s getting under Bond’s skin.

“Yes?” Q prompts.

“Ran into some trouble. First tracker is active.”

“Good lord,” he gripes, “can’t take you anywhere. Thank you 007.”

Bond recognizes the dismissal for what it is but pushes on anyways, suddenly wanting to make himself a nuisance. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

Q raises a single eyebrow. “Your last ex was five years younger than me. Good night.”

Bond’s face falls. There’s not much to do but slink away after that. He falls asleep idly puzzling at what’s different about Q these days. Disconcertingly, the answer is actually nothing, besides where he directs his attention.

The next day is a waiting game. He should hate idleness by now, but it’s easier in the field, where he’s being kept as a weapon. The psychological wheels of isolation, doubt, restlessness, must grind to a halt while a mission is at stake, and it’s a great mercy. He cleans his gun and the maintenance goes both ways. In the other room Q monitors the bug Bond planted the previous day and threads a virus through the hotel wifi like a gossamer net. It grabs onto anything it touches, quickly expanding into a relay that spans half the city without so much as disturbing the digital dust around it. By hook or by crook it would eventually come into contact with Vasyli’s laptop. The virus would terminate itself after two days, by which time they already planned to be long gone.

Unfortunately after a few hours no ping had come in from anything remotely related to Vasyli. “Time to get more _hands on_ ,” Bonda commented, and Q had just rolled his eyes. They needed to be a little more proactive in casting their net. The obvious solution, Bond suggested, was some good old fashioned bar-hopping. Get in the same room as their mobster’s hired men and they were golden.

He had told Q to wear something nice in that light and teasing tone that came easiest to him. It was a joke. He wasn’t expecting Q to turn up in a purple Canali sportscoat over a black turtleneck that accentuated his neck and trousers that actually fit his legs. Logically he knew that Q’s artfully frumpy clothes were designer label, but this was… cheating.

Again, he was filled with the urge to be insufferable. In the first bar he slings his arm around Q’s waist and improvises a cover that they’re a tourist couple on honeymoon. Q looks like he’s planning where to dispose of Bond’s body and he feels a bit better.

In bar number five they get lucky. Vasyli himself is seated in a booth at the back with a bottle of very expensive whiskey. Q urgently taps away at his phone while Bond keeps watch from a distance, their usual roles flipped. He hears Q huff with displeasure.

 _He’s not on wifi_ , Q texts, one burner phone to another.

 _That’d be too easy_ , Bond responds. The ellipse signifying Q is typing pops up, but then doesn’t resolve. Bond looks up sharply. Q has his eyes fixed on Vasyli. For half a second Bond curses the indiscretion of a non-field agent but then he follows Q’s line of sight and has to reorient.

Vasyli looks at Q with interest.

Bond’s phone finally pings. _I’ll handle this._ He types out ‘no’ but has no excuse to send it. This was exactly what they were here for. At the end of the day Q was an MI6 agent, and a capable one. And as he watches Q lean on the bar and turn up one corner of his mouth, he realizes there’s no guarantee he hasn’t done it before. Lately Q turns the tables on him like they’re at a bloody roulette wheel.

His Quartermaster walks up to the booth, smiling slyly and brushing his fringe aside, and fuck it all if Vasyli doesn’t do exactly what Bond would: turn slightly towards him, opening his body language precisely without saying a word. He can’t hear what they’re saying, and finds himself stubbornly refusing to read their lips. Q slips into the booth. He should be amused at the metamorphosis from boffin duckling to swan. He should be mildly concerned for his safety and thrilled that the hunt is on. Vasyli drifts into Q’s space and Bond can’t help but recognize the simple words he’s forming— ‘can I kiss you’. Amused and concerned and thrilled are all very far from what he is feeling.

Q slides a hand into his hair and brings their mouths together, Vasyli’s hand sliding under that damned sportscoat as he leans into the kiss. It’s slow and dirty and Q looks almost as focused as Bond is, frozen in place, watching. There are a number of things he realizes in order. One, he would like to kill Vasyli, quite violently if possible. Two, he’s gone and sunk himself with his battered heart, again. Three, he _needs Q_.

Four might have been that the burly man brushing past him had withdrawn something from his pocket, but for the first time in years he’s a little distracted on the job. As is, the only warning he gets is a pinprick in his side before the world goes dark.

The one mercy is that he’s relatively sure Q got out. At least, he hasn’t seen him in his last few hours of vintage torture. A hired goon snaps another of his fingers and he shoves the pain far away, focusing on something pleasant instead. See, James Bond with something to care about is a thermonuclear reactor. He imagines Q’s cool voice in his ear.

 _“Focus, 007. Such medieval methods rarely belie clever thinkers. What are you exit points?”_ Window, door, ventilation in a pinch. If there weren’t guards outside, the window was the obvious goal, but it was somewhat moot in a room with three heavily armed men and no weapon of his own. “ _Lost your Walther again did you? Typical_.”

He has his captors’ weaponry thoroughly mentally inventoried, and it looks quite bleak. With one hand thoroughly crushed and a sedative still lurking in his system, he could chance two of them at the absolute most before he was certain to be fatally shot. _“With that attitude, certainly.”_

_“007? Be a dear and remain conscious. Your vitals are drifting.”_

That one wasn’t in his head.

The main goon grabs for a radio at his belt. It’s crackling with a thin signal and Q’s glorious voice. _“I presume they’ve been knocking you about, is there any chance you’ve bled?”_ Bond’s brow furrows, somewhat reminded of being on the phone as Q told him he wasn’t allowed to have sex.

“A bit,” he ventures. The goons are yelling ineffectively.

_“Good.”_

Context is delivered in the form of his attackers suddenly seizing and dropping to the floor, the buzz of a taser staticky in the air. It’s coming from the splatters of his own blood.

“Did you _weaponize my smartblood_?” Bond asks.

 _“Quite. Don’t start using it on purpose.”_ Q’s voice is as steady as ever, but Bond wants to think he hears an edge in it. _“I’m coming to you.”_

“Stay. It’s too dangerous.”

 _“Christ!”_ The heat in Q’s voice catches him off guard. Q never, ever raises his voice. _“I should have let Moneypenny shoot you when I had the chance.”_

“She’s still angry?” It would only be fair but he can’t pick any particular reason at the moment.

_“Moneypenny offered because she’s a good friend. I’m angry, Bond! Because you keep fucking treating me like nothing!”_

Bond’s breath stalls in his chest. “You’re too important.”

 _“Oh ta very much. I felt so valued when you risked my career multiple times then dropped off the face of the earth, with my tech, without so much as sending a postcard.”_ Muffled gunshot emits from the radio, in a half second delay from the genuine artefact outside. _“Oh fuck off!”_

The line gets garbled for a second, but Bond can hear the bang and shuffle of combat. A body hits a floor but Q’s still breathing- he knows what it sounds like. Which means Q just dropped multiple armed men. Bond doesn’t dare speak and Q isn’t done talking, picking up as soon as he’s not actively fighting.

“ _Bond, I don’t know what you think I am. A means to an end, a toy dispenser, some wilting flower, who knows. But people who know me outside of you would know I’m—_ ” he unloads half a clip, yelling over the percussion, “—EXTREMELY WELL BALLANCED!” Bond hears the click of a new clip being loaded. “ _And if you could treat me like a normal person for five fucking seconds that would be just peachy._ ”

“None of us are normal,” Bond growls.

“ _Yes we are!_ ” Q shouts. “ _Bloody hell do you have a complex! You’re a government employee, get off your high horse about it. I have a mortgage and two cats and a therapist who I have to explain this all to._ ” Q has evidently gotten clear of enemy sights, because it’s gone quiet around him, singling out his heavy breathing. When he speaks again his voice is softer. “ _I’m not just like this. The only reason I do absurd shite like this is because you waltz in and upend my life whenever you damn well please. You take whatever I have to offer and I let you._ ”

“Q,” Bond says, grotesquely close to pleading. Q’s words fill him with mindless adrenaline. Guilt, of course, that he wanted this. He wanted Q to care enough to be hurt, and his wish is granted. But his old warship of a heart keeps pushing forwards and he can’t neglect the part that Q is tipping his hand to say that he cares at all. The building is quiet now, save for the dripping of old pipes. “If I said I was sorry, would you tell me why you let me?”

“ _I’ll need more than a hypothetical,_ ” Q says, affecting hardness that doesn’t really sell.

“If I said I mean it,” Bond says quietly.

The silence stretches. There’s not a sound in the dingy room he sits in or outside of it. The radio crackles quietly and for a moment he thinks Q has cut the line. Eventually he speaks.

“ _Imagine there’s a supercomputer belonging to a certain organization. It runs impossibly complex defence programs that protect everyone in the organization, at all hours of the day and night. It’s also password protected. No one knows the password, and no one ever actually accesses the computer. It just runs. Like white noise in the background, totally untouched._

_“Until it isn’t. One man gets the password and starts accessing the system. He doesn’t know the supercomputer is special. After years of keeping it carefully guarded he didn’t even need to look for the password. He just guessed it. And he waltzes right in and treats it like any other computer, opening all kinds of secret files and googling stupid questions and...changing... all its settings, just to suit him. And it’s really only suited to him, now. But the computer still runs its incredibly complex programs all the while, so there’s no sign. And no one else has the password, so no one could ever even see the changes. The man himself doesn’t know, because he’s used to the version of the computer he has made. Would anyone ever come to know the difference?”_

What’s left of Bond’s blood rushes in his ears. His hand is throbbing with pain but it really doesn’t matter. “The computer.”

_“What?”_

“Running all those complex programs on its own, you can’t tell me it’s not intelligent. Maybe it would tell the one person that interacts with it.”

_“What, ‘sod off, I’ve got code to execute?’”_

“No.” He hears footsteps in the hall, too light to be someone’s hired thugs, and he leans against his restraints. Q appears in the doorway, frozen there, cutting a bold shadow against the hall light. His clothes are roughed up and there’s a bruise on his cheekbone and he holds his own Walther in a clean and proper stance, shoulders squared, looking like a real agent. It’s incredible. “I don’t mind. Maybe it’s been trying to tell him that all the time.”

Q holsters his gun, looking at that instead of Bond. “Maybe.”

“Definitely,” Bond says, voice baiting him to look at him again. “He’s just not that good a listener.”

Q does look at him then, with a crushing vulnerability that makes Bond want to kiss him, right now. Being tied to a chair is the only reason it doesn’t happen. Q’s eyes scan over him and widen.

“What on earth did they do to your hand?” Q scrambles towards him, kneeling to examine Bond’s unluckiest appendage. A long, elegant hand braces against his knee and he is quite sick of his restraints.

“Q, darling, any chance you could untie me?”

Q starts and looks away, but Bond can see his ears turn red, the first reason he’s had to like the new haircut. He sets those long fingers to unknotting the rope. “Why Bond, and here I thought you would enjoy this position.”

The relief he felt from hearing Q return his idiotic flirting is immeasurable. Q frees his good hand and he immediately slides it behind Q’s neck and pulls him into a long, long overdue kiss. Q’s mouth parts in shock before he starts to kiss back, and Bond takes the opportunity to slide his tongue into his mouth immediately, kissing him deep and long like he could take all of Q like this. The angle is less than ideal, with Q scrambling for some kind of angle on the tiny wood chair and Bond still lashed in place. Eventually Q ends up with one foot on the ground and one leg folded beside Bond’s thigh, more or less in his lap, which Bond finds quite heaven. Bond laces his arm around Q’s back and slides his mouth to Q’s jaw, the juncture of his neck, feeling his throat flutter under his tongue. Q breathes hard and hot against his ear.

Unfortunately this comes to an abrupt stop when Q accidentally nudges Bond’s broken hand and he has to clench his jaw against a pained shout.

“Shit, shit, so sorry—”

“Don’t be. I think I’ve got blood on your shirt,” Bond replies. Much to his disappointment Q gets out of his lap to undo the remaining knots. Once he has use of his limbs again, he must admit that they should probably get out from behind enemy lines.

Bond thinks he gave a decent run at disguising his limp, but Q insists on supporting him nonetheless. He’s about to protest but Q glares at him and he capitulates, not having a literal leg to stand on, let alone a moral one. Q turns out to be quite sturdy, shoulders pushing steadily against him, and he really needs to learn better about underestimating him.

The car is only mildly shot out, and Q drives them a safe distance before pulling off and relocating to the back seat, where a first aid kit is stowed under the seats. Bond follows obediently, letting Q treat his hand, with some distraction. He doesn’t miss the way Q watches him from the corner of his eye as Bond shrugs out of his suit jacket and rolls up his sleeves, and he is not a man of patience. Bond steadies his good hand against Q’s hip, gripping it tightly as Q swabs alcohol over the broken skin. He pushes further into Q’s personal space, breath falling hot on his cheek, lips just skimming his jaw. James doesn’t miss the way Q’s hands stutter where they’re winding gauze between his fingers. The bandage gets clipped in place and Bond surges forward, winding his arm around Q’s back and feeling those elegant hands come up to frame his face as Bond presses him against the seat, revelling in the reactions Q gives as he teases his lips with his teeth.

“James,” Q pants, “You’re injured”

Bond huffs against his mouth. “Should I say something about being able to handle you with one hand tied behind my back?”

“We are in a parking garage.”

“An empty one.” He pops the first button of Q’s shirt. “Do you really mind?”

“God, no.”

Q reels him in by the tie into another kiss, pushing up against him until they end up reversed, Q straddling him with their limbs braced awkwardly against the upholstery in a haphazard attempt to keep their hold on both their balance and each other. It’s urgent and fumbling because to say James needs him yesterday is an understatement; it’s so overdue it feels like he’s racing to have him, to know him. James squeezes Q’s thighs and is delighted to find they’re exactly as defined as he imagined. His arse is even better. His Quartermaster sucks a bruise onto the column of his neck far above where a shirt collar will hide and Bond groans, something lighting in his gut to think that he’ll be returning to six so obviously branded as Q-branch property. When he’s in deep he becomes a possessive bastard, and it’s a street that goes both ways.

As much as he tries to play it off by feeling up Q’s chest, his shirt buttons are slow going with only the one hand. His mouth twitches in frustration and Q smiles at him and settles his hand over James’, sliding it under the shirt at his waist before releasing it to undo the buttons himself. Faint white-blue light of weak fluorescents and pre-dawn washes over his bare shoulders as he looks down at James with hooded eyes, mouth wrecked and red, like he’s ready to eat him alive. Bond does the only sensible thing and presses their hips together and moves.

Q exhales shakily, eyes fluttering closed. They rut senselessly for their own pleasure and the clothed friction is exquisite torture. Still torture though, so James quickly ends up reaching for Q’s belt buckle. It hits the car floor with a satisfying jingle. However, his fingers fumble the damn fly, which is a travesty considering he could have done it faster with his teeth. Q catches his hand again and he wants to object for the sake of his dignity, but he sucks two fingers into that lovely mouth and James is no longer interested in complaining.

“Let me,” Q says, returning the favour and getting into James’ trousers with ease.

“You’re going to spoil me,” Bond replies.

“I always do.”

Sitting in a luxury car that Q built wearing a watch he customized and carrying a gun he invented, with his prick in Q’s hand, James is aware that this is the truth.

Q is not an amateur. On paper a handjob delivered in the back seat of a car at 3 am is not the rosiest engagement, but as always Q strives for excellence. James would never characterize himself as expressive, but Q picks up on his subtle ticks and realizes exactly what’s good for him. He sets an unrelenting pace and licks into James’ mouth until he could be drowning in the way Q loves, perfectly connected. His hand still hurts like the devil but in comparison the feel of his hand stroking him off is excruciatingly sweet.

Q pulls away just enough to lock eyes with Bond with the kind of intensity he usually uses for complex lines of code that mean life or death for his agents. He doesn’t say ‘show me’ but James hears it anyways. He curls his good hand behind Q’s neck and drags his thumb through the curls at his nape, keeping eye contact with equal fire. He lets himself be louder than usual, which is to say he makes any sound at all, and gives a shuddering sigh as his pleasure crests all at once, jerking forward, spilling all over Q’s hand.

Q smiles slowly and kisses him gentle and sweet. It’s tender enough that maybe it should quell the fire in him, but it has quite the opposite effect. It’s a foreign thing to be valued. It just makes him want to be closer, plays into that possessiveness that’s fast setting in. And James Bond did not get the reputation he has by being an inconsiderate lover; he genuinely wants to treat Q to something as good as possible. The problem again comes to the narrow back seat and his injuries. But he’s nothing if not creative.

Q is somewhat affronted to be pushed out of James’ lap but once James takes him out of his trousers and leans over he seems to stop caring. Sitting practically side by side the angle isn’t that natural, but oral sex is oral sex and he knows the steps to this dance backwards and blindfolded. He tongues Q’s slit and he moans so beautifully into his fist James starts making a mental list of entirely inappropriate locations to repeat this. Q’s fingers twist vainly for purchase in his cropped hair as his chest heaves and his hips twitch impatiently.

“Slow down,” Q pants, “I’m not going to last.”

A darkly satisfying thing to hear. James pulls off long enough to say one word. “Good.”

In one move he takes Q down as far as he can and hums deep in his throat. He feels Q shudder under him and swallows hard around him, neatly taking down his shot. He hears Q’s head hit the headrest with a thud and he pulls off and pushes up off Q’s thighs with the one hand to slot his mouth into his neck.

“Hm. Well,” Q starts, voice pitched particularly high, “I’m going to break some traffic laws getting us back to our hotel now, do tell me if someone attempts to pull us over.”

“So you can release the oil slick?”

“So I can release the oil slick.”

James’ laughter rumbles against Q’s throat.

Bond turns up to MI6 on Thursday not even attempting to hide the love bite above his collar. In fact, he skips the tie and leaves his first button undone. No one bats an eye, as this is fairly in character. It’s when Q shows up with matching ones that M has a minor aneurism.

The thing is, Q doesn’t miss a step, sliding back into command like he hasn’t just very obviously fucked a double-oh in the field, and everyone follows his lead like a herd of so many ducklings. It’s absurdly sexy.

Moneypenny threatens him with a letter opener. “If you even think about hurting him my marksmanship will be the last thing you should be worried about. Am I clear?”

James tips down the blade with one finger. “Crystal.”

It must come out more honest than he intends, because Eve looks at him then like she trusts him. She tells him, “you’re a lucky man, James Bond.” He just smiles softly and agrees.

And that’s all the harder it is to tame a lion. You give it a loyalty. Though it’s been buried under years of loss and adrenaline and distraction, he is at heart still a man who wants to be faithful. Devoting himself to a phenomenon like Q is easy. He’s strong and genius level intelligent and, let’s face it, out of his league, and he deigns to care about Bond. Just this once Bond won’t throw it away, and not just because Moneypenny would disembowel him if he did.

He leaves a note on Q’s desk. One side says _I won’t leave_ and it means I love you. The other says _I love you_ and it means you make me different too. He leaves a note, and it means, let’s become something different together.


End file.
